Imagine building 26 golf courses at the height of the golf development bubble, with nine figures in public pension money — in an effort that now loses money year after year. Welcome to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
In theory, 12-hole designs should be cheaper to play, build, and maintain. But in the staid industry of golf course development, there’s been no rush to test the theory. The minds behind Sweetens Cove are ready to change that.
Langston Golf Course in Washington, D.C., serves a community with experience being ignored then heard. Its new nonprofit operator wants to change that.
The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s short par-3 course is an important step forward from its monolithic collection of regulation-length designs, but it falls short of divorcing itself entirely from some of the Trail’s more mundane qualities.
A California bill to support repurposing municipal golf courses has been miscast as a threat. In truth, it is an opportunity, if the golfing world will take it.
When it opened in 2000, architect Mike Strantz described Tot Hill Farm as “worlds apart” from his design at Tobacco Road. He was right. That’s its problem.
At first glance, LaFortune Golf Course in Tulsa appears fairly nondescript. But it quickly reveals that it learned a few tricks from its neighbor, Southern Hills.
The geological period from which Cambrian Ridge takes its name was a time of dramatic change and evolution. Cambrian Ridge almost shows some of the same. Almost.
Cider Ridge Golf Course in Oxford, Alabama, is more a forgery of a golf course than a real one: penal and poorly thought out, routed from the scraps of land left over from a surrounding housing development.
Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico on “the unluckiest island in America,” Isle Dauphine might have more potential than any golf course in the United States.
Geography, pedigree, and happenstance have positioned a Chattanooga muni to emerge as a star in an area that is already an embarrassment of public golf riches.
For a golf course in south central Tennessee and designed by one of the world’s most famous architects, comparisons between Sewanee and nearby Sweetens Cove are inevitable.
The Refuge in Flowood, Miss., reopened in 2021 after a four-year renovation. In hindsight, though, the renovation appears to have been less about the golf course and more about decorating the new hotel next door.
Wolf Hollow Golf Course, on the campus of a community college in southwest Mississippi, is a true diamond in the rough: a shot-making joyride, all for a preposterously low greens fee.
Tom Doak’s renovated design at Memorial Park in Houston strikes the balance between a high-profile, PGA Tour-worthy venue and a lovable municipal course that’s accessible to its community.